This is an excellent though largely
uncritical introduction to, and defence of, Robert Nozick’s Anarchy,
State and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974). It is also quite a good
introduction to libertarianism. It is full of good arguments. I shall confine
myself to critical remarks. My responses are mainly in the order that matters
arise in the book.

First, three brief linguistic points.
Which proof reader of Wadsworth’s allowed '30’s' etc. (11 and
throughout) without striking out the otiose apostrophe? As an anarchist, I
should rather say that liberty ought to be the highest social
value (or rule) rather than 'political value' (page 11). Feser apparently
uses, as do many libertarians, the English word ‘coercion’ to mean not
coercion (the use, or threat, of force to constrain or compel some
person—possibly in libertarian self-defence or rectification) but to mean
any liberty/rights violation even where no coercion is involved (14). He does
not do this persistently, though.

In explaining the 'impossibility of
socialism' Feser does not mention that this is usually known as the economic
calculation argument (p18). Neither does he quite spell out what the problem
is: that the planners have no way of determining the relative
scarcity of resources. Then, having apparently argued for the 'impossibility
of socialism,' Feser writes of 'the socialist economies of the communist
world' finally collapsing in the 1980s: 'Mises and Hayek predicted, as far
back as the 1920’s, that this is exactly what would happen' (p20). This is
a confusion. Mises argued that Marxian socialism is, as Feser earlier noted, impossible.
There is no known substitute for the price system to determine relative
scarcity in an advanced industrial society. Socialism did not collapse after
many decades, it was a non-starter. The USSR had a price system, albeit even
more state-interfered-with than our own, and thus was not socialist in the
sense that Mises was criticising. Of course, there are other senses of
‘socialism’ and Mises’s argument when generalised applies to them as
being inefficient to the extent that
they override the price system. But they are not what Mises’s argument was
primarily about. And though Mises’s book on socialism was published in 1922,
the Hayek-edited Collectivist Economic
Planning: Critical Studies on the Possibilities of Socialism did not
appear until 1935.

Feser objects that 'Classical
utilitarianism ... leaves open the possibility that some people may be
appropriately sacrificed ....' (32) This is a logical possibility, but is it
a real one? Correctly interpreted, I do not think so. A utilitarian might
equally well reply that ‘libertarian rights leave open the possibility that
some people may be left to starve.’ That does not seem to be very likely
either. And if observing rights is supposed to accord with 'respect for
human dignity' then so can promoting human welfare. The practical point is
there does not seem to be a real clash between the two. Defenders of rights
through most of history would think it strange to attempt to divorce rights
from human welfare and then take sides.

We are told that 'unless we assume
the thesis of self-ownership, we have no way of explaining why certain things are wrong that clearly are wrong. The thesis of
self-ownership is, then, as plausible and fundamental a moral principle as
there could be.' (33)It is not
much of an ‘explanation’ to insist that the explanation has to stop at the
assumption of self-ownership. We can go on to explain how not allowing
self-ownership leads to disastrous ‘moral hazards’ (mentioned by Feser
[35]) for both liberty (more abstractly defined than just being
self-ownership, of course[1])
and welfare. We might even concede that in special extreme cases where
self-ownership can harm either liberty or welfare, the case for absolute
self-ownership might be morally weakened.[2]
Thus we can derive general self-ownership from both liberty[3]
and welfare.[4] So self-ownership is not
itself 'as plausible and fundamental a moral principle as there could be.'

It sounds quasi-Marxist and slightly
misleading to say that if self-ownership is true 'I also own the products of my abilities, talents, and labor, that is, whatever
wealth I produce in using them.' (34) For if I produce something for you
under contract, then I need not at any point own the thing I physically
produce or all the wealth it brings. And though I own the money that you pay
me for the contractual work, I did not really produce that money and neither
did you (unless, perhaps, at least one of us literally produces notes or
coins).

Is it true that the 'negative'
nature of rights means that there is no 'danger that they might conflict'?
(38) To take only one classic example, what if person A buys all the land
surrounding person B and then refuses to allow B to leave B’s land? Does A
have an 'inviolable' right to refuse to allow B to cross his property? Or
does B have an 'inviolable' right not to be arbitrarily imprisoned? It is
such examples that, to my mind, require a libertarian theory of liberty that
is anterior to, and more abstract than, both self-ownership and ownership of
external property.

I do not know what it means to assert
that persons are 'free by nature.' (39) I certainly think that people
ought to be free, in the libertarian sense, and that they are better off being
so. I also think this moral principle withstands critical scrutiny. But why
are people free 'by nature'? Is this supposed to be a moral law that is
discovered in nature like a natural law such as gravity? Feser later glosses
'natural' as 'not derived from or dependent on any human agreements or
conventions.' (43) But in what way does that make human freedom part of
'nature'? I know ‘natural law’ has a long history, but more needs to
be said to make sense of, and defend, it than the few words Feser expends.

Does libertarianism need foundations?
Feser considers various possibilities in addition to self-ownership (48-53).
For the critical rationalist, however, the idea that respecting individual
liberty is morally desirable remains a conjecture. It is sufficient that there
is no known sound reason to interfere with individual liberty (in any
systematic or institutional way, at least). Any search for positively
justifying this view runs into the epistemological problem that we never know
what refuting counterinstance or counterargument we might have overlooked (or
even which corroborating examples might convince some people). There is also
the problem of an infinite regress if we try to support libertarianism by a
more fundamental principle such as enabling humans to pursue 'virtue,' or
'flourish,' or be 'project pursuers,' or have 'autonomy.' In any
case, surely libertarians allow that people have the right to be vicious (if
at no one else’s imposed expense), to ‘wither,’ to do nothing much, or
be heteronomous. Feser also mentions the idea that the very use of one’s
body presupposes self-ownership and so one cannot argue against it 'without
falling into a pragmatic self-contradiction.' (50) It seems to be true that
in using one’s body one presupposes that one has a right to do so, but only
if (as I accept, following Socrates and contradicting Aristotle) it is not
possible to do what one genuinely believes to be wrong at the time. But it is
not a logical inference that one does have the right just because one must
presuppose it in a live argument. If there were a god and he (decided that he)
owned us, then he would own us whatever our arguments on the matter.

In the end, Feser concludes that the
burden of proof lies with the critics, 'It is not Nozick
who needs to ‘provide foundations’ for or justify his libertarianism,
then—it is his critics who need to
justify themselves.' (54) And the typical welfare statist no doubt shares an
equal and opposite view. So we would appear to have a stalemate of each side
demanding justification from the other. But no one can provide foundations for
their conjectures. When they think they are doing so they are at best
explaining how they think their theory will usually apply. It is better to
seek (and provide) and address criticism.

Feser sees that protection agencies
will 'settle disputes between clients by appealing to a neutral third
party.' (58) But he appears to think that it must be the same
'third party ... which numerous firms retain' for all disputes. This is an
error (the fallacy of composition). It is sufficient that all protection
agencies have bilateral contracts for settling disputes (possibly by some
default procedure in the absence of a specifically named third agency; maybe
even selecting one by lottery). There is no need for a single agency to arise
as the one to which all must ultimately appeal. And any two agencies can
change their chosen third party at any time they agree to do so. Thus there is
no tendency 'toward a kind of natural monopoly ... a single dominant agency
or a single confederation of agencies ....' And so there is no need for
'common arbitration procedures.' There can be healthy competition among
procedures. Some people might still think that there is a sort of overall
‘monopoly system’ here. But it is no more a monopoly than exists among
banks just because all banks have
bilateral agreements on how to deal with each other concerning charges,
accepting cheques, etc. Therefore, there is no reason for a minimal state to
emerge by overruling competing agencies that are outside the ‘monopoly.’

It is not a 'loss of one’s full liberty'
(contra Feser) to become dependent on the state (73). It is, rather, the gain
of a licence. It is only a loss of liberty to be forced to pay for this
dependence by others.

Nozick argues, and Feser agrees, that
taxation is 'on a par with forced labor' (77ff). Immoral and inefficient
though taxation is, it is not on a par with forced labour. It is ‘only’
extortion (and only for those who really pay it; not those who are net
tax-consumers, possibly by working for the state). It cannot be on a par with
forced labour for the simple reason that no one is forced to labour. If you
sit about doing no work then no one will make you work. Quite the reverse, you
will effectively be paid by the welfare state for not working. If you do
work—in the private sector, at least—then extortion by the state is
difficult to avoid (but you should do your best). Anyway, it would be possible
to abolish income tax and replace it with sales tax. Then the retailers alone
would be forced to hand over money to the state, and not for working as such
(though some work is thereby made necessary). Still less is the so-called
welfare state, terrible though it is, a system of 'partial
slavery' (79). There are countries that really do have forced labour and
partial slavery. The victims there would rightly see that they are not on a
par with those who merely pay income tax. The answer to Nozick’s 'Tale of
a Slave' question (80) is that this is a form of the sorites problem (how
many grains of sand make a pile?). Your situation becomes less and less
slave-like until it is clearly hyperbole to assert that you are a slave.
Otherwise, at a still farther extreme, you would still be a ‘slave’ if
only the mildest imposition were to (threaten to) occur only once in your
life. You remain, however, a subject—even
if you think you are a ‘free citizen’—of aggressively imposed state
rule. And that is bad enough.

Feser tries to muddle through with
Nozick’s defence of the Lockean labour-mixing (or what-you-own-mixing)
theory of initial acquisition. Feser thinks it is 'significantly
to alter a resource or bring it under one’s control that effectively turns
it into property.' (83) Why can I not simply use or rely on some resource
(such as a natural water hole, which example Feser later mentions) without
significantly altering it or controlling it? What if I significantly alter and
control a resource (maybe by damning a small stream in sport) but do not care
a jot about it? How exactly does
significant alteration or control relate to liberty?
What is the explicit connection? We seem to have, rather, an appeal to a
pre-existing vague intuition. If (interpersonal) liberty is more precisely
conceived as not being proactively imposed on by other people (to take an
example not entirely at random), then it is sufficient that I merely rely on
the water hole for me to have some libertarian property claims not to be
excluded by someone fencing it off—especially if it is the only water
around. Feser later concedes a property claim here (87) but does not square it
with the labour-mixing that involves significant alteration or control. If it
is true that reliance can be enough, then it is not true that 'labor-mixing
of some sort seems the only available way of getting property started.' (83)
And labour-mixed property can sometimes clash with liberty.

He goes further, however, and denies
that there can be any injustice in initial
acquisitions because no one has any libertarian rights until acquisition takes
place. (86) Feser suggests that for A to be the first to monopolise a water hole and deny others access would be
'callous, cruel and wicked' but not unjust because 'it’s A’s water
hole.' (87) Why should being there first always
be trumps as regards liberty? A is
here being a positive nuisance (or worse, if death by thirst ensues) to other
people. He is not protecting the fruits of his labours in any way. So there is
no sound analogy between this and merely failing to assist someone by, in
Feser’s example, not helping him to start his car. The distinction between
proactively imposing and merely failing to assist is the crucial abstraction
that is required to make sense of the liberty of libertarianism.

In short, I think that Feser does not
have adequate arguments to respond to contrary arguments in my own
philosophical defence of anarcho-libertarianism as maximising liberty and
welfare (despite citing my book in his bibliography). I hope I have not been
unfair or unclear in attempting to restate some of my views in response to his
defence of Nozick’s book. It was largely my perceived inadequacies of Anarchy, State, and Utopia that spurred me to write something rather
different. But Feser is a bright libertarian who has merely fallen among
justificationists, minarchists and Aristotelians.

Top 50 books of all time : by Old Hickory:- "I have limited the selection to the books I have read. I keep to the norm of not recommending to others books I have yet to read. Clearly, books I have not read by now suggests a judgement of some sort."

"The state is justified, says Nozick, only when it is severely limited to the narrow function of protection against force, theft, and fraud, and to the enforcement of contracts. Any more extensive activities by the state, as Nozick brilliantly demonstrates, will inevitably violate individual’ rights."

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